Ecofriendly Tours

 

Are ecofriend­ly tours a pos­si­bil­i­ty?

Tour­ing is a very impor­tant aspect of per­form­ing arts devel­op­ment, but it is also a vec­tor for sig­nif­i­cant envi­ron­men­tal impact, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the case of dance, since chore­o­graph­ic works pri­mar­i­ly cir­cu­late inter­na­tion­al­ly. To sus­tain the sec­tor while doing our part to com­bat cli­mate change, we need to re-exam­ine the way we do things and fac­tor envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns into our choic­es.

How, then, can we lim­it the envi­ron­men­tal foot­print of tour­ing, giv­en the impor­tance of per­for­mance tours to the sur­vival of the sec­tor? Let’s con­sid­er the var­i­ous solu­tions avail­able, both local­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly, main­ly as regards trans­porta­tion, accom­mo­da­tion and tour­ing prac­tices.

Project man­age­ment and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment

First and fore­most, a com­pa­ny hop­ing to orga­nize a more envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble tour must com­mu­ni­cate its envi­ron­men­tal val­ues to the entire team and place at least one per­son in charge of the process. In addi­tion, envi­ron­men­tal con­sid­er­a­tions must be inte­grat­ed trans­ver­sal­ly through­out the pre-pro­duc­tion process. With­out plan­ning, these con­cerns are like­ly to be eas­i­ly pushed aside. Thus, coor­di­na­tion among all stake­hold­ers is essen­tial to the suc­cess of any eco-respon­si­ble approach. Remem­ber, there is no point in try­ing to change every­thing at once. Take one step at a time and keep in mind that ongo­ing improve­ment is more impor­tant than per­fec­tion.

Now, more con­crete­ly, what can be done at the plan­ning stage to reduce the foot­print of a tour?

Lim­it trans­porta­tion and choose a more sus­tain­able option

When assess­ing the car­bon foot­print of trans­porta­tion, con­sid­er the foot­print not only of the artists (rehears­ing or per­form­ing), but also of the crew and the audi­ence. The first step is obvi­ous­ly to lim­it trav­el when­ev­er pos­si­ble. For exam­ple, video­con­fer­enc­ing is a good option for team meet­ings that do not require the phys­i­cal pres­ence of mem­bers. Next, when trans­porta­tion is essen­tial, the goal is to make the best choic­es based on the fol­low­ing three vari­ables: means of trans­porta­tion, route opti­miza­tion and dri­ver behav­iour.

To being with, when decid­ing how to trav­el, it is impor­tant to pri­or­i­tize active trans­porta­tion, pub­lic tran­sit and car­pool­ing (in that order) for both artists and audi­ences. If a car must be used, choose an elec­tric or hybrid vehi­cle and make sure to use a vehi­cle suit­ed to your needs (is it nec­es­sary to use a 6‑passenger vehi­cle for just two peo­ple?). Also, when­ev­er pos­si­ble, air trav­el should be lim­it­ed, since its car­bon foot­print is much greater than that of land trav­el. Trains remain a good alter­na­tive for trav­el­ling long dis­tances.

Next, route opti­miza­tion is a good strat­e­gy for reduc­ing the amount of trans­porta­tion. Thus, it is impor­tant to try to avoid trav­el­ling to a remote area (or even to anoth­er con­ti­nent) for a sin­gle show. This not only reduces the car­bon foot­print, but also saves mon­ey and ener­gy.

Final­ly, eco­driv­ing tech­niques can be applied to reduce fuel con­sump­tion. These tech­niques improve ener­gy effi­cien­cy and reduce gaso­line con­sump­tion by 5% to 25% [1]. Try to avoid speed­ing up and slow­ing down too quick­ly, high-traf­fic routes and idling (when stop­ping for more than 60 sec­onds, it is rec­om­mend­ed that you turn off the vehi­cle com­plete­ly).

At Stu­dio 303, the team has cre­at­ed incen­tives for all guest teach­ers and chore­o­g­ra­phers to choose ground trans­porta­tion for events. In fact, their inter­nal pol­i­cy states that only the cost of train trans­porta­tion is offered to teach­ers com­ing from Toron­to. They also encour­age teach­ers and artists com­ing from New York to take the train by offer­ing to give them the dif­fer­ence in cost as com­pen­sa­tion for the fact that it takes longer. Thus, they are paid the same as a plane tick­et would cost. Also, when teach­ers come from abroad, the stu­dio does every­thing pos­si­ble to avoid a “fly in — fly out” sit­u­a­tion, by try­ing to arrange oth­er oppor­tu­ni­ties for work in Mon­tréal or else­where. These types of ini­tia­tives not only reduce car­bon foot­prints, but also nor­mal­ize deci­sions based on envi­ron­men­tal cri­te­ria.

What about inter­na­tion­al tours? Should they be com­plete­ly re-exam­ined?

Inter­na­tion­al tours are a major aspect of the dance sec­tor. While it is pos­si­ble to apply most of the prin­ci­ples out­lined in this arti­cle (trans­porta­tion, waste man­age­ment, etc.), there are times when pro­duc­tions must trav­el over­seas for just one or a few per­for­mances. Giv­en the envi­ron­men­tal impact of such trips, are these prac­tices sus­tain­able in the long run? Should we begin re-exam­in­ing the way we present our work?

Clé­men­tine Schindler, a dancer with the Com­pag­nie Marie Chouinard, believes “we def­i­nite­ly need to change the way we present our work inter­na­tion­al­ly, and no longer allow com­pa­nies to leave for a sin­gle per­for­mance in Europe, for exam­ple.”*  Nico­las Patry, anoth­er dancer, is also con­cerned about repet­i­tive trav­el: “I’ve gone back and forth to Chi­na and Asia for a sin­gle show. I real­ly felt bad, think­ing of the foot­print cre­at­ed by tak­ing the plane.”* The direc­tor of FÔVE dif­fu­sion, Nico­las Fil­ion, remarks that “on the one hand, we have to acknowl­edge the need to reduce trav­el, but on the oth­er hand, the shar­ing of knowl­edge and cul­ture should be the last sec­tor tar­get­ed for reduc­tion, in my opin­ion: first take aim at over­con­sump­tion, which gen­er­ates huge amounts of unjus­ti­fi­able trans­porta­tion, as well as tourism (espe­cial­ly lux­u­ry and/or mass tourism).”* Fil­ion has in the past refused to give iso­lat­ed per­for­mances that would require cost­ly trav­el, have a big impact, and gen­er­ate lit­tle con­crete val­ue.

Is this the solu­tion? Refus­ing iso­lat­ed per­for­mances? Fil­ion qual­i­fies this approach by point­ing to the “cry­ing lack of means and sup­port for artists and pre­sen­ters. The result is that per­form­ers are forced to take the eas­i­est paths, and even to some­times accept bad tour­ing con­di­tions in the hope of gain­ing vis­i­bil­i­ty. […] Mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures are only prac­ti­ca­ble when a cer­tain vol­ume of trav­el is involved; that is, when a com­pa­ny has attained some degree of recog­ni­tion and can begin to demand cer­tain con­di­tions be met. Oth­er­wise, artists are in sur­vival mode and have to accept what comes their way…”*

For her part, Clé­men­tine Schindler remarks that “most impor­tant­ly, we should estab­lish ways of devel­op­ing local audi­ences; there is a very small pub­lic for dance in Québec; I think we should focus on that. Fund­ing for tours should pri­or­i­tize local per­for­mances, and not reward inter­na­tion­al vis­i­bil­i­ty at all costs.”*

Such reflec­tion is nec­es­sary when imag­in­ing the future of tour­ing, giv­en the dual­i­ty of the envi­ron­men­tal impacts gen­er­at­ed by over­seas per­for­mances and the need to make arts and cul­ture acces­si­ble through­out the world. More sup­port for local tours and more col­lab­o­ra­tion among the var­i­ous actors involved could be part of the solu­tion. Accord­ing to Nico­las Fil­ion “we have to get away from the cul­ture of ter­ri­to­r­i­al exclu­siv­i­ty, stop demand­ing region­al or nation­al pre­miers, share strate­gies and plan­ning among struc­tures… This would require a big change in cul­ture, but is this what, in my opin­ion, can poten­tial­ly have the great­est impact on the envi­ron­ment.”* Food for thought indeed…

First reduce, then off­set?

Of course, the main objec­tive is to reduce the num­ber of trips. Once source reduc­tion strate­gies have been imple­ment­ed, it is pos­si­ble to com­pen­sate for the green­house gas­es emit­ted through a car­bon off­set pro­gram. It is impor­tant to think about doing so right from the start so this expense can be includ­ed in the bud­get and the nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion can be gath­ered (the types of trans­porta­tion used and the dis­tances trav­elled by each per­son). Do not hes­i­tate to refer to the list of tools and guides pro­vid­ed by the Regroupe­ment québé­cois de la danse for help in cal­cu­lat­ing and off­set­ting your emis­sions.

Reduce the amount of mate­ri­als used

Trav­el is often syn­ony­mous with fast food and waste. Here are a few quick tips on how to reduce at the source and pro­mote local economies:

• Bring reusable con­tain­ers, uten­sils, water bot­tles and cof­fee cups (have a way to wash them);
• Bring your lunch if pos­si­ble;
• Pri­or­i­tize local restau­rants when on the road and in cities.

Pro­mo­tion­al mate­ri­als also gen­er­ate waste on tours. The most impor­tant thing is to keep the pro­duc­tion of phys­i­cal pro­mo­tion­al mate­ri­als (posters, fly­ers, etc.) to a min­i­mum. When nec­es­sary, choose paper made from local and recy­cled fibres (e.g., FSC-cer­ti­fied paper) and nat­ur­al inks.

Adjust tech­ni­cal spec­i­fi­ca­tions

Although pro­duc­tion com­pa­nies have lit­tle con­trol over most of the facil­i­ties in per­for­mance venues, they can align their tech­ni­cal spec­i­fi­ca­tions with their envi­ron­men­tal and social val­ues. Here are some items that can be added to any doc­u­ment pro­vid­ed to venues:

• Inform pre­sen­ters of your eco-respon­si­ble approach;
• Indi­cate that the tour has banned sin­gle-use water bot­tles and oth­er such items;
• Ver­i­fy the avail­abil­i­ty of a drink­ing water dis­penser in the dress­ing rooms;
• Request access to tow­els instead of paper tow­elling in the bath­rooms;
• Men­tion your pref­er­ence for:

1. 1. local, organ­ic and unpack­aged food and bev­er­ages;
   2. veg­e­tar­i­an and/or veg­an options.

• Request access to waste sort­ing bins (three-way if pos­si­ble).

When you leave your dress­ing rooms, feel free to take and con­sume food that will poten­tial­ly be thrown away (bring reusable con­tain­ers). Of course, you can also apply these prin­ci­ples to rehearsal spaces.

Choos­ing the right accom­mo­da­tion

If you choose to stay in a hotel:

• Refer to the “Green Key” cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram to choose eco-friend­ly accom­mo­da­tions;
• Opti­mize the num­ber of peo­ple per room;
• Avoid using the sin­gle-use items pro­vid­ed (soap, sham­poo, etc.);
• Avoid take-out meals (opt for local gro­cery stores or restau­rants);
• Avoid hav­ing your room cleaned dur­ing your stay (reuse tow­els).

Oth­er­wise, try to pri­or­i­tize shared accom­mo­da­tions such as an apart­ment or a house since this allows for cook­ing, gen­er­ates less waste and con­sumes less ener­gy per per­son.

Com­mu­ni­cate to raise aware­ness

It is essen­tial to mobi­lize all the actors involved: dancers, com­pa­nies, arti­sans, pre­sen­ters, net­works, etc. Through your actions and choic­es, you can also raise aware­ness among stake­hold­ers by describ­ing your approach or by encour­ag­ing changes in behav­iour. To pub­licly com­mit to the process, you can join the “Artist Cit­i­zens on Tour” move­ment, an ini­tia­tive aimed at pro­mot­ing eco-friend­ly prac­tices in the per­form­ing arts.

By Le Regroupe­ment québé­cois de la danse

 

Note

[1] J. Van Mier­lo, G. Magget­to, E. Van De Burg­w­al, and R. Gense, “Dri­ving style and traf­fic mea­sures – Influ­ence on vehi­cle emis­sions and fuel con­sump­tion,” Pro­ceed­ings of the Insti­tu­tion of Mechan­i­cal Engi­neers, Part D: Jour­nal of Auto­mo­bile Engi­neer­ing, vol. 218, No. 1, pp. 43–50, 2004.